Effect of Repeated Prostate Biopsies on Erectile Function in Men on Active Surveillance for Prostate Cancer

Abstract

Active surveillance is becoming an increasingly common management strategy for low grade prostate cancer and involves repeat prostate biopsies over time. It has been hypothesized that serial biopsies can lead to reduced erectile function in patients on active surveillance and we explored this hypothesis in a longitudinally followed cohort. We identified 342 men on active surveillance whose first biopsy occurred between 2000 and 2009. We investigated erectile function using patient reported outcomes, namely the 6 erectile function questions from the IIEF-6 (International Index of Erectile Function). We estimated the change in erectile function with time using locally weighted scatterplot smoothing. The median (IQR) patient age in this cohort was 64 years (58-68). Median followup on active surveillance was 3.5 years (2.3-5.0) and the median number of biopsies was 5 (3-6). During the first 4 years on active surveillance erectile function decreased 1.0 point per year (95% CI 0.2, 1.7) on the IIEF-6 (scale 1 to 30). When stratified by comorbidities or number of biopsies we see an almost identical decrease in erectile function with time. The use of phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors increased from 5% to 27% from baseline to year 5 on active surveillance. In this longitudinally followed active surveillance cohort we observed a small decrease in erectile function and an increase in the use of phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors with time. While we cannot separate out the effect of multiple biopsies from that of the natural aging process on erectile function in this observational study, our data suggest that active surveillance related biopsies do not have a large impact on erectile function.